The warning is clear to me, but he doesn’t see it. Or maybe he ignores it.
“I’ve been hearing a lot of things around town. About you carrying on with Rhodes Wilder.” The look he gives me is filled with disappointment and is completely ridiculous.
He’s disappointed in me? I almost laugh at the implication.
I sit down in one of the chairs facing his desk and fold my hands. Waiting. Because I know my dad, and he’s not done.
“Not only have people seen you around town and you driving toward Sweetwater Valley, but they also saw him kiss you on the steps of this building.” He lets out a harumph sound and I almost rolling my eyes. “Just out there for everyone to see. Do you understand how embarrassing your actions are to me?”
When I look at the man in front of me, the man who has devoted so much more of his life to being the mayor than being my father, I’m disgusted. It’s a feeling I’ve held back for years. While holding my own pain close, I never wanted to see him as anything more than someone wrestling with their own heartbreak and unable to function past it outside of his job.
But I think I was telling myself lies all these years.
“I’ve caused you embarrassment because I kissed my boyfriend,” I internally wince at the word because it’s not accurate for a lot of reasons, “in public? It was a kiss. We didn’t make out. His hands weren’t anywhere inappropriate,” I point out.
Dad’s face turns a shade of red that can’t be healthy as he barks, “Helen!”
Part of me wants to shrink back from him. But I’ve spent my entire life shrinking. It’s exhausting and I’m tired of doing it. The only thing it’s done is made me smaller.
And it’s not enough.
“You need to watch your mouth,” his words are laced with a venomous warning.
“No,” I whisper.
Dad freezes and his eyes go so wide that they look like they’re going to pop right out of his head. The thought makes me want to giggle, orit could be a side effect of the reckless adrenaline coursing through me, but I swallow it down.
“No,” this time the word comes out stronger. “I don’t need to watch my mouth. I didn’t say anything wrong. All I did was point out how ridiculous you’re being.” I scoff, the sound loud in the room where only his breathing seems to be taking up space. “Not only am I grown woman, but what is so wrong about me seeing Rhodes? He’s the Sheriff for Loudon County. He’s a good man and you know it.”
His mouth opens and closes a few times, clearly shocked by the fact that I’m talking back to him. I get it, it’s not something I make a regular practice. It was easier when I didn’t. But when it really matters? This isn’t the first time I’ve held my ground.
Dad runs his fingers through his perfectly styled hair, the first crack in his façade. “Sheriff Wilder is a good man,” he concedes.
I can see the wheels in his brain turning and I brace myself.
“But he’s not the man for you. His job can be dangerous,” he points out as if I’m made of glass. “You should stay away from him.”
“No.”
The word rings out clear as a bell.
“What? Helen,” he sounds genuinely affronted, but all I can do is shrug.
“Why?” When his eyebrows pull together in confusion, I clarify, “Why should I stay away from him?”
There he goes again impersonating a fish. His mouth opening and closing while no words come out would be amusing on another day and during another discussion. Not this one considering who he’s trying to make me walk away from.
“You don’t have a reason,” my voice is full of admonishment as the silence stretches between us.
“Why don’t you try it again with-,” I cut off my dad’s words with a sharp glare, one filled with fire.
“Heis exactly the reason why you will never have a say in my love life again. We agreed that you would no longer meddle in that area of my life. Not after whathedid. Not after all the times you tried to smooth it over and get me to see reason,” I sneer the word and use finger quotes in the most sarcastic way possible.
Dad’s lips press into a thin line. I can see he still wants to argue about this. He also knows I’m right.
We made an agreement after Thad. It was only after I threatened that I would leave. I told him how much it hurt when he would try to push Thad and I together, how he tried to manipulate me into being some good little trophy for a man who never deserved to even breathe the same air as me. Then I threatened to leave and never have any contact with him again.
He must have seen the resolve in my eyes that day, the same he’s seeing now.
